In this post I've placed the beginning steps to a collection made only for my portfolio.
Wanting to combat the "looking not so hot because I was in a mad rush delirium this morning" syndrome, I sketched out a collection that would look sexy, sophisticated, and go from morning to evening out but remain quick and easy on those mad dash mornings.
Two amazing dresses that I bought years ago helped inspire this collection. The dresses both have fantastic fabric that feels wonderful, and, no matter how long they are twisted up at the bottom of my suitcase, they never wrinkle!! This rocks because on a mad dash morning, who has time to iron!!! (The dresses are a polyester, rayon, spandex blend.)
OK, enough raving about my two superstar dresses...
When first designing a garment, I get a general idea of what I want it to be. Next I sketch several different versions of that idea, then pick the one that's best. Demonstrated in the two following sketches of two different dresses.
After I've decided which version I like best, I may do a quick sketch like the following one, to better decide how I want the garment to fit. At this stage, I usually do not have colors in mind, just a fabric type and garment flow. The theme of the collection is also forming at this time. The theme at this point will simply be a feeling, emotion, or idea i.e. comfortable chic.
Next I sketch out the final croquis and decide colors as shown in the first image. For this collection the base colors are navy blue, a blush, a warm gray, accented by a jeweled tone fuchsia. (Note: The colors you see on your screen may not be exact matches to the original illustration.)
After the colored illustration, flats will be created and color variations decided. Flats are either hand drawn or created in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator.
Scanning into Adobe Photoshop for final editing comes next.
Layout and background will be done last, and finally I place the collection into my portfolio.
And there you go, all the steps to illustrating a collection!!!
